Antique A Flower
by Barbara Eads
(Please click on each image in order to see a larger copy of the photograph).
Flowers can be a very beautiful subject to photograph. Each flower has it's own unique design and color. You can photograph flowers up close, or from afar, or you can photograph a part of a flower or the whole thing. You can take your photograph a step further, by applying different effects and styles in photoshop.
In a series of several articles. I will go over different techniques and styles. The first effect I would like to discuss is giving your flower an antique look.
Here is a flower that is beautiful just as it is. The soft yellow gives it a delicate look. It was photographed on a foggy day. The sun was shinning through to give it just enough soft light.
Nikon 5700 F7.4 with shutter speed of 1/750
ISO 100 and zoom lens at 71mm focal length
Now look at the same flower after giving it an antique effect. It has a warmer and stronger look to it, more of an old world look. Here is how to do it. First you need a picture of a flower that has a shallow depth of field for that nice blurry background. Next, to achieve this look, you need to have the styles from the Photoshop 7 Wow book, by Jack Davis.
- You first need to open your picture up in photoshop and do your normal levels, curves adjustments.
- Then you would select styles from the window file, and choose darkroom styles. You need to choose the darkroom style that lets some of color show through.
- Go to adjustment layer and choose saturation.
- Pick what color is showing through and saturate it. It may take a couple of times to get the color back. It's up to you on how much color you want to come back.
In this picture the main color of the rose was yellow, so I selected yellow and saturated it until I was happy with the results.
Here is another example of antiquing flowers, but this time, I will take it a step further.
Nikon 5700, Aperture Priority, F7.4 at ISO 100,
zoom lens at 71mm focal length
The colors in these flowers are very pastel, along with the soft mutted background, thanks to a foggy day. But, in the picture below, look how dramatic an antique effect is on these flowers. The result, these soft flowers become warm with a hint of color, along with an interesting background.
To achieve this look, you need to follow the steps as above, with the first flower, but you will add the drybrush filter in Photoshop, and use the Wow Paint enhance filter in actions to accent the picture. The drybrush filter gives the picture a painted look.
Once you have antiqued the flower, you can experiment with the photoshop filters and achieve any look you like.
So have fun!
Barbara Eads has been photographing seriously for about a year now. She has taken photography and photoshop classes at the local community college, and is self taught from photography books and magazines. She enjoys photographing nature, and using photoshop to enhance her photos. Barbara is a regular contributor of articles to Scenic Sensations, and discusses various topics. If you wish to see more of Barbara's photography and interest, please visit her gallery at www.barbsphoto.cjb.net
All text and images contained within this article are © Copyright 2004-2005 Barbara Eads. All rights reserved worldwide.
Material contained within this article may not be sampled, duplicated, reproduced, redistributed or re-transmitted in any form whatsoever without the prior written consent of Barbara Eads or her agents.
The material is published on Scenic Sensations with permission.
